Month: August 2017

Harry Redknapp was not a happy man after Birmingham City collapsed to a 2-0 defeat at home to Reading in the Championship. The result left Blues lying in 20th heading into the first international break of the season, with only four days left in the transfer window to bring in new players.

During the current lull in activity in Birmingham and Hong Kong, I wanted to add a quick post to talk about plans for my writing for 2018 – in particular, details of a potential sequel to “Haircuts and League Cups”.

It’s been no secret that the government of the People’s Republic of China have targeted companies in an attempt to scale back their investment activities abroad. News has broken in the last day that this has now been somewhat clarified, with investment in sports clubs including football in the “restricted” category.

Birmingham City faced transfer heartache on Wednesday when news emerged that Ogenyi Onazi was refused a work permit and thus could not sign for the club. While Onazi captained Nigeria in their last competitive game and has played many internationals for them, he was hamstrung by Nigeria’s poor FIFA ranking over the past two years.

An opening day defeat to Ipswich left Birmingham City manager Harry Redknapp disappointed with the result – and cursing the paucity of strikers he currently has to choose from. He told Radio WM that “it hadn’t been for lack of trying” that they had not signed a striker, but that he “was not prepared to pay” huge sums for players.